Displaying items by tag: Bramble Arts Loft

I’m going to start with a bit of backstory.  In high school we all read (more or less voluntarily) The Iliad, Homer’s poetic exploration of a war that occurred during the Bronze Age yet continues to resonate with twenty-first century significance. Homer focuses (naturally!) on the guys:  heroic Greek Achilles and his lover Patroclus; Hector, prince and hero of Troy; Greek King Menelaus vs. Paris, Prince of Troy. The women are pretty much either pawns or plunder. The Iliad begins with Hector’s baby bro Paris swiping Helen, wife of Menelaus. Menelaus and Paris duel, intending Helen to be the prize, but when Paris is defeated, Aphrodite delivers him to Helen’s bed before Menelaus has a chance to kill him – a good example of the ambivalent outcomes when the gods and goddesses mix it up with mortals. THE TROJAN WOMEN actually begins with an introduction by Poseidon (Brian Weddington), god of the sea, and Rachel Sledd as Athena, goddess of war.

THE TROJAN WOMEN analyzes the costs of war through the trauma and grief of the Trojan women after their city has been sacked, their husbands killed, and their remaining families taken away as slaves. It’s set in a present-day hospital maternity ward that’s serving as confinement for troublesome females. The Chorus (Morgan Lavenstein), that hallmark of ancient Greek drama who provides insight into events both on- and offstage, appears as a woman vastly pregnant and chained to the bed.  She’s not best pleased at any of this, and no more tickled about rooming with Hecuba (Ashway Lawver), queen of vanquished Troy and vehemently unreconciled to its overthrow.

Ben Page is Talthybius, a Greek herald who pops in and out with news bulletins, each more hideous than the last. His is the task to reveal to the women their destinies: Hecuba will be given to the Greek king Odysseus, the widowed princess Andromache (Jazmine Mazique) is to be the concubine of Achilles’ son, and Cassandra (Liliana Mastroianni) is destined to become the conquering king Agamemnon’s doxy. Cassandra is clairvoyant, which one might assume to be an asset, but her mother has always dismissed her revelations as hysterical attention-seeking, especially as in such grievous times the future may not be something you really want to hear about.  Andromache, Princess of Troy, has just borne a son to her ex-husband ex-Prince Hector, and Talthybius must also break the news that her baby must die, as the Greeks fear he will grow up to avenge his father Hector. And Helen (Morgan Burkey), whose beauty launched a thousand playwrights, ends up back with her husband Menelaus (Marcus Castillo). There’s lots of babies around – we’re in a maternity ward, remember? – and babies are a natural outcome of the unbridled rape that is ubiquitous in wartime; in fact, it appears that the primary position of women in conquered Troy is prone. Plus, ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

OK, are you more or less caught up on characters and setting? cos I need to tell you about Eos Theatre Company. Their stated mission is ‘to shine light into the darkness of the human condition and to amplify women’s voices and stories’, and they’ve chosen THE TROJAN WOMEN as their inaugural presentation because it does both brilliantly. The four co-founders of Eos united at the first table read of The Trojan Women in February 2025. That production was not only fabulous but propagative as well: the four decided to remount the show and simultaneously create a brand-new, all-woman company, named EOS in honor of the Greek Goddess of the dawn who flies her chariot across the sky, pulling back the curtain of night to usher in the light of the sun.

Rachel Sledd is a born-and-bred Chicagoan who lived and acted between New York and Los Angeles until 2006, when she returned to her hometown. Ashway Lawver grew up in Los Angeles. Her passion for the art and study of Acting led her to Chicago to attend The School at Steppenwolf and she found in Chicago her true theatrical home. Morgan Lavenstein began acting in Baltimore at the ripe old age of 8. She attended The School at Steppenwolf and Chicago became her forever home. Morgan Burkey is originally from Texas. In 2017 she was accepted into School at Steppenwolf, where she met fellow co-founders Morgan Lavenstein and Ashway Lawver. Amazing, innit, how extraordinary people from far-flung origins are drawn together? Call it destiny, fate, or kismet, in this case it’s providential.

The production team was as superb as the cast. Co-founder Rachel Sledd was Director and Michael Lesko Stage Manager. Shayna Patel’s Set Design portrayed the ambience before the actors took the stage.  The story was encompassed by Mason Absher’s Sound; his choices of music interlocked perfectly and toward the end the impassioned sound pulled the storyline together, as did Garrett Bell’s breathtaking lighting effects.

Seeing THE TROJAN WOMEN was thrilling not only for the splendid play itself, but for the chance to witness the emergence of Eos, a feminist company whose development is sure to beguile and invigorate Chicago for years to come.

Running through April 18^th at Bramble Arts Loft

RECOMMENDED

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

Last night, while waiting in the tranquil lounge of the Bramble Arts Loft, a familiar question floated around the theatergoers: Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? It’s a philosophical question that has been around for ages. It probably passed through the minds of those who first saw the play some 2,000 years ago. It’s a question I never tire of. The debates change based on the context of the time it is asked, and the mindset of the individual. For no matter how many times it is asked, no two answers are ever alike; life and the medium are inextricably linked. There’s no better example of this currently playing in Chicago than The Trojan Women, the inaugural production of Eos Theatre Company, now playing at the Bramble Arts Loft.

Ashway Lawver as Hecuba. Photos by Steven Townshend / Distant Era.

A blisteringly relevant modern-day version of Euripides' anti-war play, The Trojan Women, has been rewritten and is set in a mother-and-baby unit of a prison. The war is over. Beyond the prison walls, Troy and its people burn. Inside the prison, the city's captive women await their fate. Stalking the antiseptic confines of its mother and baby unit is Hecuba, the fallen Trojan queen, whilst the pregnant Chorus is shackled to her bed. But their grief at what has been before will soon be drowned out by the horror of what is to come, as the Greek lust for vengeance consumes everything – man, woman, and baby – in its path. This caustic and radical new version of Euripides' classic tragedy comes from one of the UK's most exciting young poets, Caroline Bird, and is directed by Rachel Sledd Iannantuoni. It is an intense, gripping look at what happens when the world collapses.

Photo by Steve Townshend | Distant Era

The Trojan War is ancient history, relegated to stories retold through modern media countless times over. Yet the story of the war and The Trojan Women remains as relevant today as it did thousands of years ago. Euripides’ The Trojan Women takes place at the end of the war. Troy is burning while the city's captive women wait to be told their fate by the victorious Greeks, who penetrated the city walls hiding inside the famous Trojan horse. Caroline Bird’s modern adaptation of Euripides' 415 BCE tale sets the play in a Trojan hospital turned prison by the Greek invaders. “Her work is a fierce exploration of the complex intersections of class, gender, patriarchy, and nationality,” says Iannantuoni. “It is timely and timeless. Sometimes comical. Often absurd. Ultimately heartbreaking.” Superbly acted by members of the Eos Theatre Company, The Trojan Women is a production that will stay with you long after you leave the theater.

Photo by Steve Townshend | Distant Era

War is hell. While many of us might not experience it firsthand, we can empathize with the horrors it leaves in its wake, for war is as timeless as the stories that come from them. Yet again, we’re faced with a meaningless war started by the few and fought by the many. Yet again, humans are faced with unfathomable choices. Yet again, we both come together and tear each other apart over claims of moral and ethical superiority. The Trojan Women could have easily been written today. The plight of women in a patriarchal world is reduced to little more than incubators and spoils of war. The question of the role men play in war: protectors or pillagers? The questions of gratitude and honor, dignity and demise. The Trojan Women beautifully – hauntingly -- explores all of this and inevitably leads us to ask ourselves a single question: Does art imitate life or does life imitate art? See this incredible and timeless production, and let’s get together at Simon’s Tavern to discuss.

Unlike the Trojan War, The Trojan Women only runs through April 18^th at Bramble Arts Loft (5545 N Clark St 2nd Floor, Chicago). Ferry your ships and set a course for Andersonville to get your tickets and a glimpse of this tragically timeless tale today.

This review is proudly shared with our friends at www.TheatreInChicago.com. 

If all the world’s a stage and we are all merely players, then we must be prepared when we are thrust into the spotlight. Not everyone will be ready. Some of us might freeze or forget our lines or simply wave the spotlight on, forgoing the opportunity to perform, content with playing in the shadows or the wings. Others, however, crave the attention and demand to be center stage, presumably because they have something to say. Whether or not you signed up to be in the play or part of the production, it’s essential to be prepared, to know what you would say or do when given a stage. This past weekend, I witnessed just such an opportunity during a performance of Off-Nights at the Sometimes Café. The stage was set, the players cast, and an attentive audience seated. The trouble was, when the spotlight was on, nothing was said.

Off-Nights at the Sometimes Café is billed as a campy parody of a noir mystery, following a cafe pianist in lieu of a detective. As the pianist/narrator plays his way through the show, he guides the audience through the tangled web of attraction, seduction, and general silliness that occurs when a bunch of attractive queer people end up in the same place.

On its surface, Dave Walther’s Off-Nights at the Sometimes Café aims to be a delightful, poignantly unserious celebration of queer joy and desire, and a heartwarming portrayal of how to find a chosen family— warts and all. But that message, along with the representation it aims to spotlight, is completely lost in a story lacking in formula, pace, or purpose. There is no particular plot with a beginning, middle, and an end. There’s no catalytic event or climax. It’s more of a drawn-out setting of a café scene, focusing on the introduction of six characters that takes over one hour of the play’s seventy-five-minute run time to fully explain. There is no protagonist – or spoken scenes for that matter -- save for the curmudgeonly monotonous narrator who tells the story in the same sad minor keys the musical numbers are played in. The only time the characters speak is through song. While the players have exceptional voices, the choice of opera as a medium is an interesting one. The operatic numbers all focus on love (both absent and unrequited), but they don’t particularly move the story forward or really accentuate or explain the characters’ motivations or sentiments. Save for a few witty one-liners and repetitive drag numbers, there isn’t much depth or substance to this story, so it begs the question: Why was this put on?

Off-Nights at the Sometimes Café is simply doing too much for a message of love, acceptance, and community to shine through. At least that is what I took away from the production. It’s neither an homage to film noir nor a parody. It’s lacking in elements such as a femme fatale, lover’s quarrels, a whodunnit with high-contrast lighting, nonsensical voice narration, hyperbolic metaphors, or, said succinctly, a storyline, something nearly every film noir/parody possesses. The same goes for the opera homage and lack thereof. Key operatic elements are also lacking, such as libretto (text/story), aria (emotional solo), a recitative (speech-like narrative singing), and most importantly, the theatre and spectacle that opera is known for. None of that is found in this play. To be fair, perhaps that was the whole point, and it simply missed me as quickly as the 70-degree day in Chicago. If you squinted, you could see where Off-Nights was trying to go. The problem was in the execution and pace of the story. It was simply doing too much and not enough at the same time. Director Clare DiVizio’s introduction to the play provided more grounding and heart than the entirety of the run of the show, the reminder to all that queer and trans rights matter, now more than ever in today’s volatile and violent world. Off-Nights lingers so heavily in the descriptions of characters and their identification that we miss the ‘why?’ Why are we here? Why should we care about these characters? What do you want the audience to take away from this production, outside of a love story that references the last great love was when dinosaurs were drinking beers? Off-Nights, unfortunately, misses their mark.

When given a spotlight, one must be ready and prepared to step into it with something to say. No matter the medium chosen to convey one’s story, the story still needs to be easy to follow. It should have heart and depth even if it’s told through parody and satire. If the message you wish to impart to your audience is lost in translation, or simply doesn’t exist, was it ready for its moment on the stage? Did the story linger in the shadows too long, or was it simply not ready for the spotlight? With some rewriting, staging choices, and script alignment to any of the formulas the play aims at parodying, Off-Nights at the Sometimes Café could become the queer extravaganza it bills itself as. Until then, the audience is waiting for something great to take the stage and have its moment in the spotlight.

Check out the other 2026 season of events and shows at Bramble Arts Loft and learn more about The Thompson Street Opera Co. and their mission to bring inclusivity to the operatic art form.

If our day-to-day lives were a collective color, it would probably be the color blue. Whether you are feeling blue, have the blues, or are just Blue (Da Ba Dee), it’s the color most closely associated to feelings of sadness, of cold, depression, or loneliness. Not every day is going to be sunshine and rainbows filled with vibrant hues. Some days are just…blue. Personally when I feel blue, sad songs are more poignant, rain is more comforting, and I gravitate towards shows, plays, and movies that make me feel something deeper. Because when I’m blue, I want and need to feel everything. If you want to feel something deeper too, then Time Is A Color And The Color Is Blue now playing at Bramble Arts Loft is just the play for you.

Alice Wu in Time is a Color and the Color is Blue.

Set in an ice cave, Time is a Color and the Color is Blue follows a glaciologist, Whittaker, who becomes trapped in the cave while searching for the oldest known cave paintings. As her team waits out the storm in their lab, her mind begins to spiral, memories and guilt melding and folding in on each other just like pressurized ice thousands of feet below the surface. Trapped and losing oxygen fast, Whittaker must confront how she can ask forgiveness—from the Earth, from the ice cave, from loved ones she's hurt, and from herself.

 From the moment you enter the small black box theatre within Bramble Arts Loft, you are completely immersed in the cold cave with Whittaker. Surrounded by blue ice, cut off from the outside world, you immediately feel the sense of unease and brace yourself for what is to come. Will she make it out? What drove her to be there in the first place? What must she confront in herself and in the cave? What unfolds throughout the 75-minute play is an expertly crafted story by playwright Melanie Coffey. The pressure, isolation, and loneliness Whittaker experiences within the cave is a shared experience with the audience. Like the ancient ice that surrounds her, Whittaker feels the pressure to confront her reality while reconciling with her past. Alice Wu’s portrayal of Whittaker brings humor and depth to her character, pulling you into the blue. “Time is a Color and the Color is Blue weaves a story of guilt and love and ice that breaks the surface and snaps as it comes up for air,” says Coffey. The play is neither boastful nor damning though it easily could be. Rather than shaming the audience or the characters, Coffey connects us through connection; to loved ones, time, history, and the natural world. It’s connection that will save us, in more ways than one.

Harper McCoy, Alice Wu, Stephanie Fongheiser, Sabine Wan and Mary Mikva in Time is a Color and the Color is Blue.

Did you know that blue ice is created under pressure.? When snow falls and becomes compressed to glaciers it squeezes air bubbles and enlarges ice crystals, the effect resulting in its signature blue hue. A beautiful thing created under pressure. Blue isn’t just the color of sadness and loneliness, it’s calming, soothing, and tranquil. When our days become overwhelming and we feel the weight and pressures of the world we retreat into our own caves. But in those caves of our own making we can channel the calming, reflective nature of blue. Like Whittaker, we can allow ourselves to pause, reflect, and release. To find connection to our world and ourselves. If and when you are feeling blue, be sad and take the time to pause and reflect. If you choose to venture out of that cave, consider taking a stroll in Andersonville to see a play that will make you feel all the feels and maybe, just maybe, not so blue.

Time is a Color and the Color is Blue is now playing through May 24th at the Bramble Arts Loft, 5545 N. Clark Street. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit avalanchetheatre.com/time-is-a-color.

*This review is also featured on https://www.theatreinchicago.com/!

Immediately following the gastronomical excesses of Thanksgiving are the monetary investments and personal sacrifices we make for Christmas.  At the heart of both is family and the importance we place in coming together to sustain and strengthen seminal bonds. 

In 1931, a 34-year-old college professor at the University of Chicago took the long view of these ritual gatherings and focused on what they look and feel like over time.  In his beautifully crafted one act play, The Long Christmas Dinner, Thornton Wilder also manages to deliver an incisive and sobering treatise on time and its fleeting fragility.  What he does so exquisitely in the 26 pages of his script is to point us in the direction of using that time most fully and appreciatively.  Chicago’s TUTA Theatre, who “searches for the unique and exceptional in the language of theatre”, has generously brought this rarely produced treasure to the stage at the sparkling new Bramble Arts Loft in Andersonville for the Christmas season.

Wilder has the prosperous Bayard family act as proxies for all families and takes us with him as he visits them experiencing Christmas dinners that span the course of 90 years and four generations.  He pays close attention to how the family interacts and the way they voice convictions, concerns and priorities.  In many ways, perhaps in all ways, they’re a very typical and intrinsically familiar family.  That notion becomes more and more entrenched as the play progresses.  When it opens, Lucia (Alexis Primus) is about to welcome her mother-in-law, Mother Bayard (Joan Merlo), to the dinner table of her new home.  Her husband, Roderick (Matt Miles) leads the family firm and is the classic head of the house as seen in the era.  Proud of his wife, his mother and his success, he glows with the light of the supremely satisfied.   Although wheelchair bound, Mother Bayard’s vibrant mind and observant eye reveal a robust inner vitality.  It’s her penchant for too frequently repeating how clearly she remembers seeing Indians in the streets during her youth and riding rafts across the Mississippi that hint at the creeping cognitive malaise common found in the aging.

Although rather formal by today’s standards, you can still easily recognize that beneath the rituals of decorum the family practices in their interactions that there is a true closeness of hearts. You feel how sacrosanct kinship is to them. Still, the circle of life encompasses families just as it does individuals.  We are born and we die.  And it’s the way that The Long Christmas Dinner treats these events that make us evaluate ourselves and our relationships with our own families.

The entire play occurs around a stately dining table in the middle of the stage.  Laden with gleaming silverware and China, the luxurious Oriental carpet it rests on and the elegant linear chandelier floating above it are the few things that will remain unchanged.  Two dimly lit doorways, one on the left and the other on the right of the stage, represent the ending and beginning of life, respectively.  Keith Parham’s quietly graceful set surreptitiously becomes its own character.   Stoic and impassive as it witnesses transitions through each doorway.   His lighting design would go on to memorably propel and enhance the dramatic impact of the play. 

Watching the arch of Uncle Branden’s presence was particularly impactful. Full of life, song and playful mischief, he was such a bright light when he first came to dinner.  Assuredly played by Wain Parham, he began to change when Roderick, his cousin, fell victim to his excesses in drink.  Branden’s silence began to grow when Roderick later passed through the doorway symbolizing death.  As he watched Roderick and Lucia’s children, Charles (Huy Nguyen) and Genevieve (Charlie Irving) grow, his warmth remained, but his effervescence and spontaneity notably faded until he too slowly drifted through the portal on the left.

As new generations of Bayard’s are born, explosions of joy and happiness are plentiful on the right where nurses dressed in immaculate white emerge through the passageway cradling babies who soon grow to teenagers and adults.   Often bearing the names of those who proceeded them, old names become new again and we can’t avoid noticing the cyclicality of existence.  Rather than a crown denoting succession, among the Bayard women a shawl becomes the item that chronicles the passage and toll of time.  Used to keep aging shoulders warm, it symbolizes both the inevitable and the blessing of continuity.   That same continuity can be heard when certain random phrases and observations are made by each successive generation that none had heard spoken before by someone else in the family.

Rifts, discord and the realities of life erupt in this very respectable family as they can and do in all.  Stifled by family expectations and the limitations of living in a small town, Charles’ son, Roderick II (Matt Miles) bolts to California when confronted about his drinking and lack of interest in familial responsibilities.  Charles and his wife Leonora (Seoyoung Park) had already lost a son during the first World War and their second son’s departure marked a crippling blow.  As we’re reminded by numerous characters throughout the play, time may not heal grief, but it soothes sufficiently to ease its pain and weight.  When Joan Merlo reappears as distant cousin, Ermengarde, that kind of wisdom flows with the power of rushing rapids.  A highly accomplished craftsman, Merlo’s phrasings of speech were transfixing as she wrapped the profound in tiny pellets of simplicity.  Her gleam of excellence ran through the entire cast, who were uniformly splendid. 

Most impressive was the meticulous pacing and abundance of satisfying nuance director and TUTA co-artistic director, Jacqueline Stone, built into the production.  She insured small gestures resonated with unexpected force and light touches of humor glittered brightly enough to make the project shine with warmth and contemporary flair.

In a time and landscape where holiday entertainment options are virtually endless, The Long Christmas Dinner counts as an especially rewarding option from a company who has a knack for curating works of discreet brilliance.

The Long Christmas Dinner

Through December 29^th, 2024

TUTA Theatre Company

Venue:  Bramble Arts Loft

5545 N. Clark Street

Chicago, IL  60640

https://www.tutatheatre.org/the-long-christmas-dinner-tickets

After completing my hundredth fan fiction about the same two characters defying all obstacles and falling in love, I took a moment to reflect as to why I come back to these stories. There is a comfort in a formulaic story line, the protagonists eliciting nostalgia, escapism, but when you boil it down, it’s the same story. Over and over again. Only…it’s not. While the characters are the same, common traits and backstories peppered throughout, every story is uniquely its own, different catalysts, differing motivations, different settings and situations. What connects all the stories in the uniquely human factors to them all, messy and beautiful and complex. It’s this same appeal that keeps us coming back to the theater. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you see a play that completely takes your breath away, something familiar and altogether uncommon; Evil Perfect is just that play and more.

In an otherworldly city obsessed with achieving absolute equity at all costs, Lily, a dissident at the end of her rope, meets Puck, the son of the city’s charismatic matriarch. As their unlikely relationship grows and the city’s enforcers close in, Lily and Puck hatch a terrifying plan to revolt. Set in a tarnished society with twisted ideals, Evil Perfect is a messy and seductive play that attempts to reveal how good people with honorable intentions become evil.

“Evil Perfect activates something deep in the core of us, something wild and untamed and yet leaves us questioning and curious as to why…and if it’s even a good thing," said Evil Perfect Director Jonathan Shabo. Playwright Spencer Huffman described the production as “a gruesome and sexy satire – it’ll make you laugh and squirm in equal parts. I think audiences will relish in the play’s savagery.”

Chicago has one of the most incredible theater scenes in the country, affording new playwrights, actors of all ages, and like-minded lovers of the arts to come together to create something wonderful. Evil Perfect at Bramble Theatre Company has everything that makes this city and the theater community great, with a charming and accessible theater loft in the bustling Andersonville neighborhood, a well crafted script that is anything but tired or cliched, and a cast of characters that display a remarkable range. Danny Breslin, who portrayed Puck, and Ashley Neal as Lily, were equal parts off-putting and alluring, the characters directly confronting the society’s human repercussions. Breslin was an absolute standout and the arc his character takes will leave speechless. Neal as his seasoned counterpart had you unable to look at anything else when she was on the stage, commanding the audience through her mesmerizing range. With Brandom Bums as Brian, and Ebby Offord as Jo reminding us all through their characters that humans are going to human, no matter what societies attempt to repress and limit, Evil Perfect has a perfect balance of wickedly good and deliciously evil elements, examining the age-old question of impact vs. intention.

On paper, Evil Perfect might seem like other dystopian or draconian plays you’ve seen and there is a comfort to that. But it’s the smart, subtle and subversive way in which the story unfolds that will remind us why we return to stories like this. No two are alike. The world premiere play Evil Perfect runs through November 10th at the recently opened Bramble Arts Loft in Andersonville (5545 N. Clark, Chicago). Be a good coworker and get your tickets today at BrambleTheatre.org.